CHAPTER XVI. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. SECTION FOURTH: THE LITERATURE OF THE SECOND AGE. A. D. 1830-A. D. 1852. William IV. :-1830-1837. 5. Poetry-Minor Poets.-2. The Genius and Works of Tennyson.-8. Novels-Bulwer -Minor Novelists-Thackeray-Dickens.-4. Essays and Histories-Hallam's Literature of Europe-De Quincey's Criticisms-Macaulay's Essays and History-Alison's History-Carlyle's Works.-5. Religious Works-Newspapers-Reviews and Magazines-Instruction for the People-Encyclopædias.-6. Philology, Anglo-Saxon, English, and Classical-History, Classical and Modern-Travels.-7. Physical Science Political Economy-Logic-Whewell-John Mill-Metaphysics and Psychology-Sir William Hamilton-CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE.-8. History and Character of Literary Progress in America.-9. Retrospect-The First Age of the Century-Novelists-Irving and Cooper-Poets-Bryant and Dana.-10. Poets of the Present Day-Mrs. Brooke-Longfellow-Novels and Romances.-11. Theology-Channing-Mental Philosophy-Orations and Periodicals-History-Bancroft and Prescott. 1. OUR studies cannot be closed without a glance at the Literature of the generation in which we live. But the glance must be hasty; and the opinions founded on it must be both cautious and briefly expressed. The only names which can find a place in our memoranda will be those of literary persons who have acquired extensive fame, or whose efforts have already achieved results from which permanent effects cannot but follow; and our estimate of the intellectual character of the time ought to be formed with the hesitation becoming those who, just because they are themselves imbued with its spirit, are not impartial judges of the value or the ultimate tendency of its exertions. The want of originality with which we, the sons of the age, are almost unanimous in taxing it, must be admitted to be very obvious in its Poetry. The huge wave which, earlier in the century, threw on shore so many treasures, has long since ebbed; and there is little for us to gather but the shells left by the ripple of an ordinary tide. Poems were never produced by so large a number of writers as within the last thirty years; and never were so many pieces written, that show felicitous moments both in matter and in language. But seldom also have so few poems appeared, which rise sufficiently above mediocrity to have a chance of survivance. In Lyrical and Sentimental verse, our stock has been particularly large. We are probably doing some injustice by omission, as in the case of Bailey, Horne, or Knowles, when, from among the poets whose fate with posterity is still doubtful, we select a very few as most worthy of remembrance. Henry Taylor deserves notice for the fine meditativeness and well-balanced judgment shown in his dramas, as well as in his prose essays; Browning, for the strength of thought which struggles through the obscurity of all his poems; and Mrs. Browning, for similar merits accompanied with greater force of imagination. Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, also, is doubtless a good deal infected by the inclination to mysticism, or to a kind of semi-philosophy in verse, which is prevalent among our worshippers of the muse; and his metrical compositions have an artificial stateliness indicating him to be more at his ease in prose. But he deserves honourable commemoration for the high sense he everywhere shows of the functions of poetic art, for the skill with which his Dramas are constructed, and for the overflowing picturesqueness which fills his "King Arthur." Notice is demanded, likewise, by the vigorous conception of Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer;" and by the remarkable union of grotesque humour with depth of serious feeling, that marked the genius of Thomas Hood. 2. Alfred Tennyson, the only very brilliant poet of our generation, is entitled to be compared with the poets of the last. His works constitute a new link in that series of poetical changes, which had its first step in Wordsworth and its second in Shelley. Theoretically considered, the movement may be said to consist in an increasing predominance of the lyrical and didactic elements. of poetry over the epic and dramatic: the narration of events, and the portraiture of character and action, have become more and more subordinate to the representation of the poet's moods of feeling, or to the imaginative embodiment of reflective thought. Views which have been expressed freely in preceding stages of this survey intimate sufficiently an opinion, (not likely to be generally acquiesced in at present,) that progress like this is not in a direction promising to lead to poetic greatness. Nor is there reason for believing that even Tennyson's poems, by far the most powerful of those in which tendencies of the sort have lately been manifested, have really exerted a wide or commanding influence. But, in their kind, they are very beautiful. His mind is exquisitely poetical: his diction is often felicitous in the extreme: his susceptibility of those refined emotions, which his favourite objects of contemplation are calculated to excite, is alike delicate and profound and much of his imagery is not only fascinating for its natural and suggestive aptness, but marked by a very strong originality. It is not wonderful, either that he should have captivated so many minds alive to fine influences, or that his turn, both of thought and of style, should have found so many imitators. His very faults, though they may offend exact judg ment or cool ardent sympathies, never involve coarseness either of taste or of feeling. Many of his poems are sure to live: though, in the days of our grandchildren as now, some of his readers will admire, as a faultless gem, one of his lyrics, or ballads, or pieces of fantasy, which seems to others, equally admiring his genius, to be spoiled by strained conceits, or mannerism of phrase, or over-crowding of images. The exquisite finishing which he gives to his poems, both in language and in structure, does indeed sometimes injure their effect, yet is worthy of all honour in our century; and, in setting such an example, and drawing followers after him by the force and fineness of his genius, he allows us the satisfaction of claiming, for our contemporary poetry, one point of superiority over the most famous works of the time immediately before ours. He is, especially in his poems of the last few years, led astray much oftener by an over-subtlety of thought, which gives birth to analogies that are very often really cold, sometimes quite unpoetical, and occasionally as far-fetched as the most unnatural conceits of the seventeenth century. Yet, puzzled or chilled as we may sometimes be, there breaks through, ever and anon, even where the blots are most thickly strewed, a gleam of romantic fancy as bright, or a touch of tender emotion as irresistible, as anything in the whole range of lyric poetry. Tennyson's most elaborate effort, "The Princess, A Medley," prognosticates, too truly, by its quaint name, a want of success in the harmonizing of incongruous elements. But it has innumerable beauties of detail. His smaller pieces are still those on which his poetical eminence rests most surely and not a few of these, contained in his two earlier volumes, justify the warmest admiration of poetically endowed readers. Perhaps, however, nothing that he has written is more interesting than the series of elegiac musings, in which, under the significant title "In Memoriam," he mourns, with the tenderest voice of friendship worthily bestowed, over the premature extinction of rare genius and accomplishments. 3. Among the hundreds of Novels and Romances which have been poured forth in our day, many of them by writers of much talent and skill, it would be rash to seek for any parallel to the multifarious power of Scott. Prospero's wand lies buried with him among the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. Among the earlier novels of the time, those of Bulwer bear, much more decidedly than any others, the stamp of native genius; and, although sev eral of them represent views of life which are neither pleasing, nor just, nor wisely calculated to be morally instructive, they not only have great force of serious passion, but exhibit unusual skill of design. In some of his later works, this distinguished writer rises into a much higher sphere of ethical contemplation than that in which he had previously moved. "Pelham" and some others of his earlier novels will always, probably, be his most popular productions: but there is a nobler ambition, and an ambition worthily sustained, in his historical romances, Rienzi, Harold, and The Last of the Barons. From among the other Novelists, a very few only can be selected for hasty notice. The novels of Theodore Hook, sparkling with turns of verbal wit, have really no substance that can ensure them long survivance. Nor is there much promise of prolonged life in the showy and fluent historical tales of James, the clumsy though humorous sea-stories of Marryat, or the monotonously gay scenes of Lever. The many novels of Mrs. Marsh, and Mrs. Hall's narratives and sketches, are pleasing and tasteful: Mrs. Trollope's portraits of character are rough and clever caricatures. Great force of description, with a good deal of overheated feeling, has been shown by writers describing the lower departments of Irish life; Banim being by far the most original and impressive of these, while Griffin was much weaker, and Carleton, in a different key, is better than either. The satirical novels, for which the versatile genius of the younger D'Israeli has found leisure amidst the turmoil of political warfare, introduce us to a higher class of fictions. In all of these there is exerted much more power of thinking than in those of the miscellaneous group last alluded to. The meritorious attempts made, in Miss Martineau's earlier stories, to teach the truths of political economy by invented examples, were full of the writer's characteristic clearness and sagacity: but they were neither lively enough in narrative, nor dramatic enough in their representations of human character and manners, to excite the interest that was aimed at. The narrative sketches of the dramatist Douglas Jerrold exhibit, amidst their fantastic and cynical humour, so much real seriousness of thought and purpose, as to deserve being singled from the crowd, and placed among the reflective and speculative fictions of the day. One or two very attractive works of the class inculcate or insinuate social theories so startling, that it is here prudent to leave them unnoticed. But among those contemporary writers who, at an earlier or later stage of their career, have aimed at making the novel illustrate, as far as its form would allow, the questions which agitate society most powerfully, there are two whose works are, perhaps, the most marked features in the literature of our time. They may, indeed, though very unlike each other, be said to be the founders of a new school in novel-writing. These are, William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens. Thackeray has given to his pictures of society and character all that they could receive from extraordinary skill of mental analysis, great acuteness of observation, and formidable strength and fineness of sarcastic irony; but he has not been able, if indeed he ever desired, to excite continuous or lively sympathy, either by interesting incidents, or by the exhibition of deep passion, vehement or pathetic. Dickens has done much more than all which Thackeray has left unattempted. While his painting of character is inimitably vigorous and natural, his stories are always interesting, and would be much more so if they were less encumbered by minute details: and his power of exciting emotion ranges, with equal success, from horror (sometimes too intense) to melting pathos, and thence to a breadth of humour which degenerates into caricature. He cannot soar into the higher worlds of imagination; and his tread is too heavy even for the secluded field of romantic or poetic meditation. But he becomes strong, and inventive, and affecting, the moment his foot touches the firm ground of reality and nowhere is he more at ease, nowhere more sharply observant or more warmly sympathetic, than in scenes whose meanness might have disgusted, or whose moral foulness might have appalled. 4. In the Art of Criticism, our generation has witnessed the appearance of the only great work of the kind, that has been given to the language during the century. The fame previously won by Henry Hallam in rougher fields, has been widened by his "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries," which has instantly taken its place in the foremost rank of our classical standards. There are not many books resting on so diversified a fund of learning; there are not many that are written at once so clearly, so chastely, and so attractively; there are fewer which show, as the endowments of one mind, such soundness of judgment, mastery of philosophical principles, and refinement and susceptibility in literary taste and still fewer are there whose spirit and temper are so |